


In the Shadows

by Endangered_Slug



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angsty for me, F/M, Rumbelle Showdown 2016, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 15:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6476560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endangered_Slug/pseuds/Endangered_Slug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Round 1 for the 2016 Rumbelle Showdown. My prompts were: Rock candy, An unhappy marriage, Servant and employer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Shadows

She stared through the dusty windows at the candy store across the street with its rows and rows of rainbow-colored rock candy in jars, wondering what it would be like if she could just disappear — dissolve in water like the sugar in those jars. Some days she felt just like the sweets. Just as brittle, just as decorative, just as useless. Today was not one of those days. Today, she didn’t even have the energy to hate herself. She looked away towards her husband standing behind the glass counter.

But she always saved just enough to hate him.

He ignored her as he always did. His ledgers, those broken trinkets he pretended to repair in the back, the ridiculous windmill lawn statue she had to share space with, they were more important to him than she was.

There was no marriage to speak of. Not really. She couldn’t even remember why they’d married, just that one day she was working for him for a pittance and the next they were married and she no longer earned a wage at all, chained to him by a prenup so airtight that leaving would put her in his debt for life. She didn’t remember signing it, but she knew it existed, had seen the paperwork and her signature and nothing short of his death would release her from him.

The fact that he was so much older than her was the only bright spot in her life. Fate had destined her to be a widow and then she could finally make her escape. The thought of it almost made her smile and she felt the edges of her mouth try to curl up, but not even the hope of her husband’s eventual demise could work its magic on her that day. Nothing felt real to her anymore, not even her skin, and smiling was now as foreign an act to her as was voicing her opinion.

She’d tried in the beginning. Dressed nicely for him, cooked his favorite meals for him, got down on her knees for him. Smiled for him. She can’t say for sure if he’d tried in his own way because he was like a stone monument, constant and unchanging and immovable and with as much warmth as marble iced over.

Sometimes there was a light gleaming in his eyes that made her pause half a second, as if he was remembering something important, and his face changed somehow — warm and soft and almost tender. But, then she’d blink and it was gone, taking that stranger with it, and only her cold, unfeeling husband was left. She wondered what that other person was like, the one with the soft gaze that seemed as if he might like her, even for that short second. Those fleeting moments when she caught a glimpse of a loving man behind that unfeeling mask of his confused her, kept her wary of him and always watchful, always aware that there was so much more to him than he let on. At least, that’s what she told herself at night after he was done with her and she was allowed to sleep; there must be someone else inside. No one could be that inhuman.

The hours dragged by, every day just like the one before and it felt as if an emotional anvil had been chained to her neck preventing her from doing something — anything other than the nothing she was suited for.

The library was across the street next to the candy shop, boarded up and empty and useless and once she asked her husband if she could work there instead. She wanted to bring something to life in this town full of sleepwalkers, but his cold gaze merely flicked at her before he went back to counting the stack of money in front of him, riches he didn’t need or want or even care about other than the fact that he had it and others didn’t. The ability to take and to keep was what drove him, a tiny dragon on his tiny hoard in a tiny town, for his only true love was power.

Her attention went back to the window, her eyes following the flight of a solitary seagull just to her right, screeching hoarsely as it wheeled on the wind. She followed it as far as it stayed in her sight, but the horizon from the window was shortened from the shop’s overhang and the bird was gone within seconds. She checked the sky for another, but none came, there was nothing left but blue and the looming roof that kept her in the shadows.

The sky grew dark as she sat, unblinking and ever watching as the townsfolk walked by. No one stopped in today nor did they turn their heads to look at her. Interaction was forbidden. Nothing had been explicitly spoken, but they all knew that she was his and anything more than a nod in her direction would be dealt with harshly. For them, not her. She was safe from his punishments at least. He wouldn’t kick her out into the cold or threaten her with a broken hand if she disobeyed him. His abuse was different for her: silence, invisibility, reduced to being an afterthought if she was lucky. A dress up doll was what she was, a mannequin for him to do with as he pleased, when he pleased, and her voice had long been silenced by his implacable sense of he was right and she was wrong.

It had grown late and still she sat, waiting for him to come collect her like he did the rent, a payment for some invisible and insurmountable debt she never agreed to. The sky had gone dark and the sulphur yellow street lights — clouded over with flitting, tiny, black bugs attracted to their glow – had come on hours ago. Small town, no one was about at this time of night, they were all home with their families or out with their friends. There was only her and her husband and the bugs around the streetlight. Even the seagulls had quieted down.

She sighed, feeling sorry for herself and hating herself for it even as she chose to stay on her stool and watch the town for signs of life. Her eyes grew heavy with sleep, but she knew better than to nod off when he might be back at any moment.

It must have been another half an hour before the bright glow of headlights turning up from First startled her out of her stupor. She perked up, head tilting to the side as she watched the car drive by, unable to make out the passengers through the film of dust on the store’s window.

Strange, she’d had never seen that yellow bug in town before.


End file.
